Aubeterre-sur-Dronne

One of our favorite discoveries in France was the little village of Aubeterre, right on the edge of the Charente region. Signs proclaimed it “one of the most beautiful villages in France,” and it certainly was that. It turns out that that’s an official designation. There are 150 towns and villages in les plus beaux villages de France.

The name comes from the Latin alba terra, ‘white earth’, because of the nature of the limestone of the area. It’s the site of an enormous underground church, an ‘eglise monolithe.’ Here’s a small slide show of our visit, taken with our first digital camera — a monstrous 1.3 megapixels.